An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Old Fuss and Feathers Tells Abraham Lincoln How to Win a War

The old General in all of his splendor.

Note: Adapted
from a post on this date in 2010.

As I scan various
sources for interesting anniversaries every day in preparation for writing
posts, when I come up to the 1860’s I am flooded with events from the American Civil War—battles fought,
generals appointed or fired, political machinations North and South, the
introduction of some new and horribly effective engine of mayhem and
destruction. And I have generally
avoided picking one and running with it, not because the Civil War is not
interesting, but because it is too compelling.

The Civil War is the
black hole of American History. You can fall in and never get out. There is just so much there. And any time you think you know what happened
a touch of research will dispel that illusion.

But today marks and
anniversary in the war that deserves notice, even though most Americans are
totally unaware of it.

On May 3, 1861 aged Lt. General Winfield Scott, Commanding
General of the United States Army, presented President Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet, with his Anaconda
Plan to conduct the war. The plan
was widely derided by the press and public, which believed that a quick,
decisive battle with the main Confederate
army in Virginia would win the
war. Scott knew better. He anticipated a long, bloody conflict.

Lincoln may have wished
for a short, glorious war, but the former Black
Hawk War militia Captain had read everything on military strategy and
tactics that he could lay his hands on in the Library of Congress and sensed that his Commanding General may be
right. Although he did not accept Scott's proposal in every detail, questioned his time line, and felt he had to order a major attack on Richmond to keep public support, from that point on despite the public ridicule and outcry the President
conducted the war broadly on Scott’s plan.

The plan called
for:

1. Blockade ports in
the Atlantic and Gulf to reduce foreign supplies and
cotton and tobacco exports from Confederate ports.

2. Blockade the Mississippi River to reduce grain and
meat shipments from the western to eastern Confederacy and foreign supplies
through neutral Mexico.

3. Control the Tennessee River Valley and a march
through Georgia to prevent
cooperation among the eastern Confederate states.

4. Demonstrations against
Confederate capital to
keep the main Rebel Army pinned down and on the defensive with a campaign of army troops and navy support along
the James River.

And that is pretty much
exactly how the war was won by the Union.

The Navy successfully blockaded most
Confederate ports and captured key ports like Pensacola, Mobile, and New
Orleans. Western troops,
experiencing much greater success than the ponderous Army of the Potomac in the East, secured the length of the
Mississippi with the capture of Vicksburg
on July 4, 1863 (coincidently the also the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg) dividing the
Confederacy in two. Another Yankee Army
drove down the Tennessee Riverprotecting
the loyal border state of Kentucky, splitting
divided Tennessee and setting up Sherman’s campaign through the railroad
and industrial heart of the south in northern Alabama and Georgia,
including the capture of Atlanta,
which cut off the lower South.

Campaigns in Virginia
and along the James, under incompetent leadership were long, bloody, and
inconclusive until the end, but without the logistical support of the rest of
the nation, Lee’s legendary Army of Northern Virginia was
doomed. Just about the way Scott had
foreseen.

In 1861 Scott was
winding down a 47 year Army career serving 14 presidents from Jefferson to Lincoln having served in
the War of 1812, the Seminole Wars, Black Hawk War, and Mexican War. He had been Commanding General of the
Army for twenty years, longer than anyone before or since and was the first
officer since George Washington to
carry the rank of Lt. General.

Yet he also cut
something of a ridiculous figure. His
once powerful 6 foot 3 inch frame had ballooned to over 300 pounds. Notoriously vain, he swathed that mass in
outrageously gaudy uniforms with gigantic epaulets, extravagant gold braid and
decoration, every medal he was ever awarded, topped off with a great Napoleonic
era plumed hat. Ailing from both gout and narcolepsy—uncontrollably lapsing into sleep—he knew that he would
not be able to take command of his troops in the field.

Instead he offered
field command to fellow Virginian Col.
Robert E. Lee, universally regarded as the most able officer in the
service. Unfortunately, unlike Scott,
who unhesitatingly placed his loyalty to his nation over that of his native
state, Lee chose Virginia and the Confederacy.

Scott had to entrust the
command of the rapidly swelling Volunteer
army to the untried hands of Brigadier
Gen. Irvin McDowell. Scott despaired of both McDowell and the ill
trained, short term enlisted Volunteers.
During his whole career he had advocated a highly trained professional
army with militias and volunteers called to service thoroughly trained before
introduction to combat.

In 1808, as a young
Virginia lawyer and a corporal in the militia cavalry, he secured an
appointment as a Captain of Artillery
in the tiny Regular Army. He made his mark early by crossing his
superior, Commanding General James
Wilkerson, a corrupt scoundrel and innervate plotter. Wilkerson had him court-martialed for
insubordination and suspended for a year.
After Wilkerson was exposed as Spanish
secret agent—just one of his many intrigues that included plotting with Aaron Burr to set up an independent
inland republic—Scott was able to resume his duties with his reputation
enhanced.

In the War of 1812 he
made his mark as a commander and a hero.
Captured in the Battle of
Queenston Heights in 1812 when the New
York Militia refused to cross into Canada
in support of his regulars, Scott was paroled and went to Washington to
appeal to raise regiments of regular troops.

The following year as a
full colonel he planned and led the amphibious assault on Ft. George which required a coordinated crossing of the Niagara River and a landing from Lake Ontario, which was considered the
most brilliant American maneuver of the war.

In 1814 as a brevet
Brigadier General Scott commanded the American
First Brigade in the Niagara campaign. He had been training and drilling his
regulars to a fine edge for months. But
unable to secure regulation blue cloth for their uniforms, outfitted them
sharply in gray with tall shako caps.
When the British saw the marching in disciplined ranks into battle, a
horrified officer exclaimed, “That’s not the Terrytown militia. Those are
by God Regulars!”

Those regulars soundly
whipped veteran British troops at in the Battle
of Chippewa and then held the battlefield at fiercely fought Lundy’s Lane, where Scott and overall
American commander Major General Jacob
Brown were both severely injured.

Although the invasion
of Canada was stalled, Scott was hailed as a hero for showing that American
troops could beat British professionals in a stand-up battle. The battles were commemorated at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, where
the cadets would wear grey uniforms and shakos.
And the Confederate Army, dominated by West Pointers would, ironically
adopt a gray uniform.

In the years after the
war, Scott would turn to the routine occupation of a Regular Army Officers—Indian wars. Scott was assigned command of 1000 Regulars
and Volunteers from the east to relieve expiring volunteers units in the Black Hawk War of 1832. Unfortunately, the men brought the cholera with them, not only rendering
them unfit for service, but unleashing a deadly epidemic in the West. Although Scott never got to the battle field,
he arrived on the scene to play a critical role in negotiating Black Hawk’s
surrender and drafting a peace treaty.

Three years later he
was commanding a large column fruitlessly chasing hostiles in the Florida swamps during the Second Seminole War.

No sooner was that bit
of business concluded than President
Andrew Jackson called on Scott to be the Federal brawn behind the Force Act, meant to compel South Carolina to honor the Tariff of Abominations in the face of Nullification threats. Sent with re-enforcements to the garrison at Ft. Sumner at Charleston, South Carolina, Scott had to juggle the bellicose
desire of the President to “Hang the traitors,” and Joel R. Poinsette’s delicate task of rallying South Carolina
Unionists while a new tariff acceptable to the state was moved through Congress.

He got high marks for
both his strong military resolution and for local diplomacy. When the city caught fire, he dispatched
troops from the garrison to help quell the blaze—and improve relations with the
locals.

With the crisis passed
Jackson’s successor President Martin Van
Buren turned to Scott to enforce the Cherokee
Removal from the Eastern states.
Scott disapproved of the policy, but did a soldier’s duty. He considered it the low point of his
career. He was able to negotiate the
voluntary removal of a large number under the leadership of Chief John Ross and managed to round up
other bands with a minimum of bloodshed.
He tried, as far as possible, to make conditions on the march tolerable,
ordering rides, assistance and extra rations for children, the elderly and
infirm. Where his reliable Regulars were
in charge, things went relatively smoothly.

But many bands were
escorted by undisciplined volunteers who abused, harassed and stole from their
charges without mercy. He meant to
personally accompany the first body of evacuees on the march west from Athens, Georgia but was recalled to
Washington for a delicate diplomatic mission upon reaching Nashville.

Scott was sent to the Maine/Canada boarder to negotiate a
peace in the bloodless Aroostook War which
threatened to erupt into another shooting war with the British. For his success and service he was promoted
to Major General, the highest rank
active in the Army.

Scott would repeat as a
diplomat when he negotiated a solution to another boarder crisis with Britain,
this one over St. John Island in the
Pacific Northwest in 1859.

But first there was the
Mexican War. President James Knox Polk forced the war on Mexico by moving troops
into disputed land between the Nueces
and
Rio GrandeRivers. This army, made up mostly of volunteers was under the
command of Scott’s service rival Zachary
Taylor scored victories in heavy fighting at Monterey and Buena Vista but
was hundreds of miles north of the capital city, separated by daunting
desert.

Scott conceived of a
second attack by sea landing at the port of Veracruz and driving quickly to Mexico City. He executed the
first major amphibious assault in American history when he successfully landed
12,000 Regular Army, Marines, and well trained Volunteers and all of their
artillery and baggage outside the fortified city.

In coordination with
the Naval Squadron under the command
of Commodore Mathew Perry he laid
siege to the fortified city, which was reduced by Army artillery and naval
gunfire and surrendered after 12 days.
With the port now open to keep his supply line clear, Scott began his
march west, roughly following the route of Cortez. Yellow Fever struck the Americans and
Scott was only able to move with 8,500 healthy troops, among them many future
Civil War generals including Lee, U.S.
Grant, George Meade, and Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson.

Mexican PresidentAntonio Lopez de Santa Anna moved from the Mexico City at the head of 12,000 well armed and trained
troops. He entrenched across the road at
Cerro Gordo, roughly half way to the
city. Instead of a frontal assault,
Scott sent artillery into the rugged mountains and enfiladed the Mexicans in
deadly fire and flanked the dug-in Mexicans, who were routed to heavy
casualties.

Several other sharp
engagements marked the march to the capital, culminating in the attack on the Mexican Military Academy at the castle
of Chapultepec. When that fell, Scott negotiated a peaceful
entry to the city.

The Duke of Wellington upon studying
Scott’s campaign declared him to be “the greatest living general.” The offensive is still studied and much of
later Army combat doctrine was drawn from the experience.

The President appointed Scott the Military
Governor of Mexico City, where he drew praise for enforcing bans on looting
and molestation of citizens. He threaded
the thorny issue of what to do with the captured San Patricios—Irish deserters
from the U.S. Army who took up the Mexican cause. He was appalled when a court martial
sentenced 72 of them to hang. The former
lawyer scoured his law books to find excuses to vacate the sentences of as many
as possible. He objected to the death
penalty in 22 of the cases and later pardoned or commuted the sentences of 15
more.

With Scott still on administrative duty in Mexico
City, his rival Taylor arrived back in the States and earned the Presidency on
the Whig ticket. Scott was sure
he would have been a better man for the job.
Taylor died leaving Millard Fillmore to complete his term.

When the Democrats in 1852nominated
handsome, dashing Franklin Pierce, one of Scott’s less distinguished
subordinate Volunteer generals in Mexico, the Whig convention stalemated before
finally dumping Fillmore and nominating Scott on the fifty-fourth ballot.

The party was split on slavery, particularly the
issue of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act.
The Party platform endorsed enforcement over Scott’s objection
leading to loss of support of the Whig ticket in New England, and disillusion
with the candidate among pro-slavery southerners who jumped en-mass to the
Democrats. Despite his personal
popularity Scott carried only four states.
It was also the last hurrah of the shattered Whigs as a national
party.

Scott, his vanity bruised, none the less went
back to work as Commanding General.

It is fortunate for Lincoln and the Union that he
stayed as long as he did. But after McDowell’s
raw and ill trained volunteer army was routed at First Bull Run, Lincoln had to turn to the ambitiousDemocrat George McClellan as
his field commander. McClellan, popular
with the troops and with the press, was openly insubordinate to the Commanding
General and plotted to replace him.
Seeing the writing on the wall and in ill health, Scott finally retired
in November. McClellan got his job while
retaining field command.

McClellan would be just as insubordinate to the President as he was to
Scott and despite assembling a massive, well trained and well appointed Army
would prove too timid. Lincoln replaced
him as Commanding General with General
Henry “Old Brains” Halleck, a plodding administrator who did not get in the
way of the field commanders like Grant and Sherman who could actually win
battles.

Winfield Scott, Old Fuss and
Feathers as he was known by his men, died at West Point in 1866.